This invention relates to fabric cutting apparatus, and is more particularly concerned with apparatus wherein a stack of fabric is held and moved past band cutters for accurately cutting pattern pieces from the stack of fabric.
In the past, pattern pieces have been rough-cut from a large stack of fabric; and, some pattern pieces are useable in their rough-cut form whereas other pattern pieces must be re-cut more accurately. The conventional method for accurately re-cutting pattern pieces has been through the use of mating dies, but there are certain inherent problems with such method. A recently developed system for accurately re-cutting pattern pieces is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,832,297 wherein a stack of overcut pattern pieces is held and moved relative to a pair of rotating circular knives, with the knives being properly spaced to cut the fabric to the desired size. A single operator must load fabric into a carrying means, place a holding means on top of the fabric, and continue to hold the fabric down while the fabric is passed across the circular knives; then, the same operator must remove the holding means and remove the cut fabric. All of this activity takes place within a small space so that the operator is limited in his total activity. Also, since the cutting means are circular knives, the maximum thickness of fabric to be cut must necessarily be somewhat less than the radius of the circular knives.